Read Ark Online

Authors: Stephen Baxter

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy, #Space Opera, #Science Fiction, #Floods, #Climatic Changes

Ark

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

 

One - 2041

Chapter 1 - August 2041

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

 

Two - 2025-2041

Chapter 4 - June 2025

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11 - January 2031

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14 - May 2032

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18 - September 2036

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24 - December 2038

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27 - September 2039

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31 - August 2041

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35 - November 2041

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40 - December 2041

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

 

Three - 2042-2044

Chapter 46 - February 2042

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49 - June 2043

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52 - March 2044

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

 

Four - 2044-2052

Chapter 57 - September 2044

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60 - December 2046

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64 - May 2048

Chapter 65 - June 2048

Chapter 66

Chapter 67 - July 2048

Chapter 68 - September 2049

Chapter 69

Chapter 70 - December 2051

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73 - November 2052

 

Five - 2059

Chapter 74 - July 2059

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80 - August 2059

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

 

Six - 2068-2081

Chapter 83 - May 2068

Chapter 84 - June 2068

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90 - May 2078

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93 - February 2079

Chapter 94 - July 2081

Chapter 95

Chapter 96 - August 2081

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

 

Afterword

OTHER BOOKS BY STEPHEN BAXTER

From Roc Books

 

 

FLOOD

 

From Ace Books

 

 

TIME’S TAPESTRY

 

Book One:
EMPEROR

 

Book Two:
CONQUEROR

 

Book Three:
NAVIGATOR

 

Book Four:
WEAVER

ROC

Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
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Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

 

 

Copyright © Stephen Baxter, 2009

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

 

 

Baxter, Stephen.
Ark/Stephen Baxter.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-18757-9

1. Floods—Fiction. 2. Climatic changes—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6052.A849A89 2010

823’.914—dc22 2009051305

 

 

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

 

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

http://us.penguingroup.com

For Mary Jane Shepherd

 

1955-2009

One

2041

1

August 2041

G
ordo Alonzo and Thandie Jones had rustled up a helicopter to take the Ark Three party back to the ragged Colorado shore. All of them but Grace Gray, who wasn’t going anywhere.

Grace, her arm held firmly by Gordo Alonzo, watched the bird come down over Cripple Creek, scattering some of the flimsier shanties that crowded the narrow streets. The town had once been a mining settlement, and then a tourist trap. Now, in the age of the flood, with the sea that had swept over the United States lapping at the Rockies, homeless were camped in the streets and parking lots and the forecourts of disused gas stations, and a shantytown of tents and shacks spread far beyond the core of the old settlement. The population didn’t seem scared by the descent of the bird. They just cleared out of the way, dragging their blankets and sheets of cardboard.

Thandie led the Ark Three people aboard the chopper: Lily Brooke, Nathan Lammockson, and Grace’s own husband, Hammond, Nathan’s son, thirty-five years old, flabby and resentful. But Grace was staying behind with Gordo Alonzo to be taken away into Project Nimrod, into Ark One, whatever that meant. Hammond didn’t even look back at her.

Gordo, though, spoke to her steadily. “You know, some parts of this drowning planet have gone back to the Stone Age. But this is the neighborhood of NORAD. One of the few places in the world where helicopters are still commonplace. That’s why the people aren’t spooked by them. And believe me we do a lot more exotic stuff than flying choppers. You’ll see . . .” Maybe in his way he was trying to reassure her.

Gordon James Alonzo was a former astronaut. He was in his seventies now, and all his hair was gone, but he was just as upright and fit-looking and intimidating, his blue eyes still as bright, as ten years ago when he had shown up with Thandie Jones at a Walker City campsite, when Grace was just sixteen. Well, Gordo had been in a US army uniform then and now he was in the blue of the air force, but none of that was important to Grace. He was a relic of an age she had never known, as alien as the rich folk on Nathan’s Ark-ship had always been to her.

Grace had spent most of her life on the road with Walker City, fifteen years walking with her home on her back, like a snail or a crab. The time before that, when she was younger than five years old and a pampered prisoner of her father’s family in Saudi, was a blur, unreal, as were the years she had most recently spent as another kind of prisoner on Nathan’s liner. Now here she was yet again passed from one stranger’s hands to another.

Only the walking was real, she sometimes thought. Past, future, the vast cataclysm humanity was suffering—none of it mattered if all you could actually do in the world was put one foot in front of another, day after day, kilometer after kilometer. She could just walk away now. Walk off with nothing but the clothes on her back, just as it had been with Walker City. But she had her baby growing inside her, a baby she hadn’t wanted by a “husband” she loathed, but hers nonetheless. She didn’t want to manage the pregnancy on her own.

Gordo said, “They’re lifting.”

The wind from the rotors battered Grace’s face. Lily Brooke leaned out of the chopper and stared down at Grace. She mouthed what looked like, “Forgive me.” Then Thandie pulled her back into the machine, and the bird lifted smoothly.

“Are you OK?”

Grace was angry with herself for showing weakness, angry at Lily for her manipulation and abandonment. She snapped, “What do you think?”

Gordo shrugged. “They left you behind to give you a shot at getting into Ark One. A chance of a better life than any of them face now, especially if they’re right that their boat has been sunk.”

“I don’t even know what Ark One is.”

“You’ll find out.”

“I’ll never see any of them again.”

“I guess not.”

“Once again I’m alone, with strangers.”

He sighed, pushed back his peaked cap, and scratched his scalp. “So are we all. The whole world is screwed up, kid. At least here we got something to
do.
” He looked around. The last dust from the chopper was settling now, and the homeless were pushing back to recolonize the space they had cleared, like water pooling in a dip. In a few minutes there would be no sign that a chopper had landed here at all. “Well, that’s that. Come on, let’s get you out of here.” He released her arm and set off back through the town, toward the waiting cars.

She followed, having no choice.

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